Thousands of Ukrainians taking refuge from the bombs have forged a kind of subterranean village life
Dracoa the ferret and the ginger cat named Cat have reached an uneasy truce. And while the dog across the platform still yaps at them both, after more than a month, the humans and their pets living in this corner of Kharkiv’s metro station are used to each other, the Guardian reports.
On one side of the platform, Tetiana Kapustynska hung up balloons for her 24th birthday on the pillar she sleeps behind. “The day before I cried because I didn’t know what it was going to be like, but in the end people got together and celebrated with me,” she said.
“The biggest problem was champagne, I couldn’t find a bottle anywhere,” she added with a grin, as she made cups of instant coffee for visitors with water in a flask. “Cake wasn’t so much of a problem. You can still get it in the shops.”
Kapustynska, who is a maths and physics teacher, turned the metro station’s operation room into a cross between a childcare facility and a school for the children living in the underground chamber. For her birthday, they made decorations and organised flowers.
Barely a month ago, she had been trying to choose a bar or restaurant for celebrations. But since the war began, bombs, shells and rockets have smashed Kharkiv city centre and residential areas, killing hundreds of civilians, in perhaps the most intense offensives of the war outside the besieged port town of Mariupol.
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